Wythenshawe"s early history began as the Domesday village of Northenden. This north Cheshire "den" has had its share of drama and personalities-a Civil War siege, incidents in the 1745 Rebellion, the two main instigators of Peterloo and a couple of famous murders. These were nothing, however, compared to the invasion by Manchester which, after battling with the land-owners through the 1920s, crossed the Mersey armed with a Parliamentary permit to build its great garden city. It was designed by Barry Parker to house 100,000 and achieved its fame, not as a garden city, but as the world"s largest council estate.